


Insignificant Spaces

by ajfessler, DreadPirateWombat



Series: Something of Worth [6]
Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hazing, I'll fix it I swear, Scott Needs A Hug, Something of Worth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-14
Packaged: 2018-12-15 03:17:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11797302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ajfessler/pseuds/ajfessler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreadPirateWombat/pseuds/DreadPirateWombat
Summary: It's a new chance. A new opportunity to be better than a thief, to be the role model he's always tried to be for his baby girl. But that's not going to happen if he lapses back into bad habits out of boredom. So Scott sucked up his courage, threw his pride to the curb and asked for something to do. Something that utilized his lesser known talents in electrical engineering.This was not what he was expecting at all...





	Insignificant Spaces

**Author's Note:**

> A HUGE shout out to DreadPirateWombat for being awesome and adding her two cents into this. Give it mucho kudos for her because she is lovely and deserves all the praise. 
> 
> This is set after As It Turns Out, but before the Epilogue. 
> 
> Enjoy!  
> -Aj

Scott Lang had never been a man of means, yet for the first time in his life, the meager state of his bank account didn’t matter. He was an Avenger, and his baby girl was proud of him and well provided for in the Compound. SHIELD’s technology department supplied him with the raw materials needed to ensure the Ant Man suit continued to operate in peak condition and furnished the roof over his head and put food in his stomach. The problem?

Scott was bored. 

So bored he’d screwed up his courage and approached Director Coulson about it. To his everlasting surprise, Coulson had listened attentively and agreed to see if he could find a place in the SHIELD labs for Scott to ply his trade as an electrical engineer. Which was how he had found himself in the office of one Natsumi Jones a week later. 

The day had started with Scott re-ironing his only collared shirt and slipping on a pair of black slacks, before meeting up with the austere woman. Scott would have been intimidated if she was more than 5’ 3” without her heels. As it was, her gaze seemed to be level with his nose, although somehow she still managed to give the impression of looking down on him. Pretty, with a flawless complexion, that had to be artificial, Natsumi dominated her surroundings. She exuded competence from her black heels to the pressed perfection of her pinstriped skirt suit. Her cinnamon skin was the only break in the monochromatic image that had been waiting for him at precisely the stroke of nine that morning. 

She’d taken him on a whirlwind tour of the bigger, less secret labs. He’d noticed that the technicians in those spaces eyed her with wariness. Not fear, or resentment, but there was a particular caution in the looks that Scott caught thrown in their direction. The farther they traveled through the SHIELD levels, the more Scott wondered if he’d made a mistake. The Avengers’ area of the compound had clearly been designed to foster a sense of community and to maintain a cohesive unit. Spaces were provided for those who tended towards a more anti-social nature, but they were encouraged to spend time in communal areas. More often than not everyone piled in a group together; cooking team dinners in the shared kitchen and watching movies in the entertainment room. It wasn’t unusual to find several of the inhabitants merely sharing space in the living room, each engaged in their own pursuits but enjoying the quiet company of the others. What offices and support staff there were in the Avengers’ section, were also of a similar designed and encouraged more coordination and collaboration. A fact that was shown most clearly in the individualist manner each support staff office was decorated. Seeing them clustered around a single table in the break room laughing and teasing wasn’t an unusual sight either, as Scott had learned early through careful observation (and more than a few instances of getting lost). He’d expected SHIELD to behave similarly.

And in contrast, the SHIELD labs were well-lit, sterile spaces. The overabundance of white (because of _course,_ ) gave Scott a headache, the surfaces covered in notes and projects, yet completely impersonal. These were spaces of _work_ , and that fact was readily apparent in the labs. Just as obvious was the feeling of necessity when he observed the scientists collaborating, interactions born out of professionalism instead of a sense of fellowship. It was not an environment that encouraged innovation of the likes that had spawned Iron Man, Captain America, and Scott himself as Ant Man. These were scientists who even while standing in the same room as their fellows were still isolated from each other. It was hard for Scott to not compare their interactions to those of Dr. Banner and Tony Stark. To find the bland, carbon copy scientists both dull and lacking. Especially when comparing it to the excited babbling at dinner which Scott could almost follow more often than not. Even as he had to look up the concepts, and terms that they threw about like slang to grasp the full context. Yinsen his ever helpful voice of memory. Or even the vague mutterings as they reviewed data on a shared a StarkPad, effortlessly bouncing ideas back and forth with no more effort expanded than Steve throwing the shield. They _worshipped_ the altar of Science! and didn’t need a suffocating, austere temple to do so. 

When they first entered the labs, Scott had tried to make a joke about the clichéd sci-fi appearance, but instead of laughing, Natsumi had just given him a flat look before continuing on with her monologue on the research being conducted. She’d also taken to stalking off without a word, forcing Scott to scramble to keep up with her surprisingly rapid strides. 

Now he was sitting alone in her office. With its harsh modern lines, gray color scheme and unforgiving air, it managed to be even more unwelcoming than the labs. Bookshelves lined precisely with uniformly-sized texts, their leather bindings bare of titles, staring at him from one pale gray wall. The other side of the room held a picture of a bland landscape that Scott was pretty sure had come with the office. Behind the desk were hung three frames displaying her doctorates. Scott winced, Cornell. There went his chance at impressing her with his education. 

The desk was laid out with mathematical precision. The inbox was closest to Scott, and while lacking a ruler to double check, he was nearly positive that the plastic contraption was exactly two inches from the edge with each file stacked in a precise pile inside. From what he could see, the desk calendar was similarly arranged. The only thing that seemed out of place was the pen laying out, which rested at an angle. The fountain pen was of exquisite quality. From where he was sitting, it looked like it was gilded with real gold and wrapped in mahogany. He’d never seen anything like it. He’d not even seen Stark with something so ornate, and Stark oozed money and influence like it was cologne. Of course, Scott also couldn’t remember seeing Stark with anything as archaic as a pen; the man had a stylus slotted between his fingers regularly as casually as if it were a cigarette for use on any of the retrofitted surfaces found absolutely everywhere in the Compound. 

The pen winked at him, calling to his sticky fingers like nothing else he’d encountered since coming to the Compound. 

Scott decided then and there that if nothing came of this wasted day of looking for something productive to do, he was going to steal that pen. Not because he wanted it, but because he was bored, and it was just fancy enough to be worth it. He was also, mostly, sure Coulson wouldn’t do anything more than lecturing. As long as the pen eventually made its way back to its owner, Scott could sit through yet another lecture about respecting the property of the other people who lived and worked in the Compound without breaking a sweat. That made the pen a safe acquisition and thus worth it. 

It was one hell of a loophole in Coulson’s rules since leaving the Compound for anything more than the tedious investigative missions and glad handing diplomacy parades was a thing for the Avengers as a whole. Scott might have been upset, except Coulson wasn’t singling any one of them out. No one was permitted to leave the grounds for any reason. Except for Barton. 

Barton, who had left for the first time a week after they had arrived. He’d been in civilian clothes that time, but every time Scott had caught him coming or going afterward, Barton had always been in uniform, bow in hand and quiver strapped securely to his back. Scott decided after the third time Barton had come back covered in blood and limping that whatever the archer was doing Scott didn’t want to be a part of it. 

The recent infiltration had brought to light that somehow Barton had weaseled his way back into the good graces of Tony Stark. Scott had been furious to start with, then he’d been jealous. No one had ever looked at him the way Stark looked at Barton. After everything, Scott had been forced to re-evaluate his opinion. Hank had never had a single kind word to say about the billionaire, and surprisingly neither had the man’s former teammates. It had bothered him how each of them had some kernel of hate to spew out about the man. Not enough to ask himself the hard questions, at least not to begin with; that had come later. 

Googling Tony Stark had been an eye opener. He found medical technologies to help with mental trauma and drug programs to aid addiction. There were prosthetics for amputees and wounded warriors, body armor for troops that was light and flexible without losing durability. Computers, tablets, and smartphone innovations that left Stark’s competition looking like they were a decade behind the technological curve. Clean energy, clean cars, clean water. Genetically engineered crops that grew healthy with a fraction of the water traditional crops of the same varieties required. The list went on and on. 

That wasn’t even counting all of the charities and charitable donations that the man had started or given to. In a surge of morbid curiosity, Scott had Googled the rest of his teammates and wasn’t really surprised when he couldn’t find anything comparable. Granted, they weren’t billionaires either, so people like Wanda and Vision would have a hard time making quite the same impact. But for someone like Captain America? There were other ways to support charities and raise awareness than donating obscene sums of money. And as far as Scott could find, Steve Rogers hadn’t ever bothered. 

The picture that had come together of Tony Stark wasn’t the dossier of a man who cared only for himself and the quarterly gross margins. Not after the record losses suffered after Tony had shut down weapons manufacturing. There had been an article Scott had found predicting mass layoffs in the face of such severe losses. Layoffs that had never come, and no one seemed to know what Tony Stark had done to ensure he didn’t lose employees but something told Scott that there had been a lot of shuffling the upper management had under taken to secure those jobs.

The click of stilettos on tile pulled Scott’s attention towards the door, seconds before Natsumi stuck her head around the door jamb and ordered, “Follow me, Mr. Lang.” 

No apologies for making him wait or an explanation of where she’d gone. Scott sighed and jumped up to follow her. She didn’t wait for him, and her stride was filled with purpose, the echoing clack of her heels made him think she was punishing the tile as she walked. Anyone with a badge moved out of her way, most not even acknowledging Scott’s presence with a glance. The gazes that would meet Scott’s eye weren’t particularly welcoming. Oddly enough, the same look was directed towards the both of them. Scott could understand in his case, he’d been to jail three times after all. He didn’t blame the government agents for being a bit hostile. Scott probably would have been to in their shoes. He wondered what Natsumi had done to earn the same reaction from her coworkers, although if she treated everyone the way she was treating Scott, that might shed some light on things. 

They stopped in front of an entirely unadorned door, without even a holder for a nameplate. Scott got a sinking feeling, as Natsumi turned to him and said, “This is the space that we have to spare for you to work in Mr. Lang.” There was a little condescending smile sent his way before she continued, “Unfortunately, due to your circumstances you have no clearance, and until I’ve heard back from Director Coulson we can’t issue you one.” 

The look she gave him clearly communicated how unlikely it was that they would ever issue Scott a clearance of any sort. He let it go; it wasn’t important, as long as they gave him something productive to do. Scott just needed to keep reminding himself of that until it was true. 

Natsumi raised an eyebrow when he didn’t respond, and her smile took on a sharp quality as she finished telling him, “Until your clearance issues are worked out, we can’t give you any SHIELD or Avengers projects to work on. As per Director Coulson’s request, I have found something for you to work on from Stark Industries. A failed project of theirs. For now, I suggest you familiarize yourself with that and see if there might be some new outlook or perspective you can bring that might revitalize the project and bring it back into possible production.” 

She tilted her head slightly to one side, considering Scott, before spinning elegantly on her heel and walking away without another glance. Scott opened the door to his new space and blinked. Someone had converted a storage closet into a mini workshop, complete with a work desk and failed science project. With a sigh, Scott stepped into the room and started to take inventory. At least they weren’t making him scrub toilets. That was a definite step up from his last job.


End file.
